Neville
Chamberlain on Appeasement (1939)

Britain and France pursued a policy of
appeasement in the hope that Hitler would not drag Europe
into another world war. Appeasement expressed the
widespread British desire to heal the wounds of World War
I and to correct what many British officials regarded as
the injustices of the Versailles Treaty. Some officials
regarded a powerful Germany as a bulwark against the
Soviet Union.

On September 27, 1938, when negotiations
between Hitler and Chamberlain were strained, the British
Prime Minister addressed the British people. Excerpts of
this speech and another before the House of Commons are
included here.

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First of all I must say something to
those who have written to my wife or myself in these last
weeks to tell us of their gratitude for my efforts and to
assure us of their prayers for my success. Most of these
letters have come from women -- mothers or sisters of our
own countrymen. But there are countless others besides --
from France, from Belgium, from Italy, even from Germany,
and it has been heartbreaking to read of the growing
anxiety they reveal and their intense relief when they
thought, too soon, that the danger of war was past.

If I felt my responsibility heavy before,
to read such letters has made it seem almost
overwhelming. How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is
that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas
masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country
between people of whom we know nothing. It seems still
more impossible that a quarrel which has already been
settled in principle should be the subject of war.

I can well understand the reasons why the
Czech Government have felt unable to accept the terms
which have been put before them in the German memorandum.
Yet I believe after my talks with Herr Hitler that, if
only time were allowed, it ought to be possible for the
arrangements for transferring the territory that the
Czech Government has agreed to give to Germany to be
settled by agreement under conditions which would assure
fair treatment to the population concerned. . . .

However much we may sympathize with a
small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbor,
we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the
whole British Empire in war simply on her account. If we
have to fight it must be on larger issues than that. I am
myself a man of peace to the depths of my soul. Armed
conflict between nations is a nightmare to me; but if I
were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to
dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel
that it must be resisted. Under such a domination life
for people who believe in liberty would not be worth
living; but war is a fearful thing, and we must be very
clear, before we embark upon it, that it is really the
great issues that are at stake, and that the call to risk
everything in their defense, when all the consequences
are weighed, is irresistible.

For the present I ask you to await as
calmly as you can the events of the next few days. As
long as war has not begun, there is always hope that it
may be prevented, and you know that I am going to work
for peace to the last moment. Good night. . . .

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Since I first went to Berchtesgaden more
than 20,0000 letters and telegrams have come to No. 10,
Downing Street. Of course, I have been able to look at a
tiny fraction of them, but I have seen enough to know
that the people who wrote did not feel that they had such
a cause for which to fight, if they were asked to go to
war in order that the Sudeten Germans might not join the
Reich. That is how they are feeling. That is my answer to
those who say that we should have told Germany weeks ago
that, if her army crossed the border of Czechoslovakia,
we should be at war with her. We had no treaty
obligations and no legal obligations to Czechoslovakia
and if we had said that, we feel that we should have
received no support from the people of this country. . . .

When we were convinced, as we became
convinced, that nothing any longer would keep the
Sudetenland within the Czechoslovakian State, we urged
the Czech Government as strongly as we could to agree to
the cession of territory, and to agree promptly. The
Czech Government, through the wisdom and courage of
President Benes, accepted the advice of the French
Government and ourselves. It was a hard decision for
anyone who loved his country to take, but to accuse us of
having by that advice betrayed the Czechoslovakian State
is simply preposterous. What we did was to save her from
annihilation and give her a chance of new life as a new
State, which involves the loss of territory and
fortifications, but may perhaps enable her to enjoy in
the future and develop a national existence under a
neutrality and security comparable to that which we see
in Switzerland to-day. Therefore, I think the Government
deserve the approval of this House for their conduct of
affairs in this recent crisis which has saved
Czechoslovakia from destruction and Europe from
Armageddon.

Does the experience of the Great War and
the years that followed it give us reasonable hope that,
if some new war started, that would end war any more than
the last one did?

One good thing, at any rate, has come out
of this emergency through which we have passed. It has
thrown a vivid light upon our preparations for defense,
on their strength and on their weakness. I should not
think we were doing our duty if we had not already
ordered that a prompt and thorough inquiry should be made
to cover the whole of our preparations, military and
civil, in order to see, in the light of what has happened
during these hectic days, what further steps may be
necessary to make good our deficiencies in the shortest
possible time.